


A heart-shaped hole in my chest

by aphrodite_mine



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 20:57:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4639956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphrodite_mine/pseuds/aphrodite_mine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"I could feel you then, Sestra," Helena says, and it is not what she wants to say (</i>sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry, I did not know, I knew, I knew, I am so so sorry<i>) but it is a true thing. "Not like now, but… your eyes, they are different from their eyes."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	A heart-shaped hole in my chest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merryghoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/gifts).



> A huge thank-you to my beta!

Helena will stay with Sestra Alison for "just a bit longer" while Sarah goes "up North" to get her daughter with Mrs. S and Brother Sestra. Helena wants to go up North also, but Mrs. S says it is just too much of a risk what with the baby and, well, "you two _are_ the spitting image. Doesn't bode well for keeping a low profile." Helena is disappointed, but staying with Sestra Alison is not bad. Alison says that they don't really need Bubbles any more, now do they? but it would be very good to keep up appearances, so Helena spends part of each day mixing up soaps and smelling delicious smells. 

She takes showers and stands under the hot water and sings to her baby. The baby likes the way she sings. Not like Sarah. Sarah says she sounds like a beached whale, but her baby thinks that whales sound very nice. 

She plays karate with Gemma and eats wonderful food. (Donnie is on a diet, but he takes her in the car to get donuts, and Helena likes this very much. It is a secret, though, which Helena does not think that Sestra Alison would like, but if she doesn't tell she will get more donuts and that seems to be a good thing. Donuts are very delicious.) 

"Do you want to play with me?" Oscar asks. He is standing in the door to the garage which is a place he is not supposed to be, but Helena likes Oscar so she will not tell. 

She pulls down her goggles and snaps off her gloves. She bends her knees and holds her hands up and says "Hiiii-yah," like Gemma says to do, but Oscar shakes his head and smiles. 

"Not like that. I thought, maybe, do you want to play with the Barbies? They are going to a party, and it is hard to hold all of them by myself." Oscar steps back into the house, holding out his hand for Helena to take. Holding hands is wonderful, and she squeezes. Someday, her baby will hold her hand like this. Oscar leads her into the living room, where the bodies are everywhere. 

Helena drops his hand, feels her heart crammed up in her mouth. "This is Barbies?" she says, and she does not recognize her own voice. It sounds far away, like Helena is a little girl. But even when Helena was little she was never small. She feels small.

She can see the happy faces red with lipstick and nail polish and markers that Maggie brought. She can see sharp things through the bodies, heads coming off with a satisfying pop. Her stomach growls. 

No, Pupok is dead. The Pupok-shaped piece of her is gone. Empty and aching like the gums after a tooth is pulled. Pulpy. She is trying, trying to fill in the Pupok-place with family and sestras, and Helena can even touch her stomach and feel the tight skin and the hardness inside of her belly and she is full, there is nothing missing. She is whole.

"I do not think I want to play Barbies," Helena says. She lies down on the couch and closes her eyes. 

*

When Sarah comes back, she is resolute. She is hard in the way that Helena's belly is hard against her palm, and she feels it immediately. Kira hugs her tight, all chin and elbows, but all Helena can feel is Sarah _not_ hugging her tight. The air between them is like an electric storm. Helena's hair stands on end. "I miss you, pleminnytsya," Helena says against Kira's hair, but she watches Sarah's eyes, and she says the same to her sestra but without words. That makes Sarah soften, just a little. A small ripple across a still pond.

"Hey, Monkey," Sarah says, spreading her hand over the back of Kira's head. So close to Helena, but only touching her with Kira and Helena's baby in between. "Auntie Alison is making cookies, I think, for you and ah, your cousins. Mum and Auntie Helena have some errands to run."

Kira pulls out of the hug and squints her eyes at Sarah. She smiles. "Cool," she says, "I never had cousins before!" And this makes her run into the kitchen, and soon Helena can hear her greeting Sestra Alison and asking Gemma if she would like to color.

"What errands are we running?" Helena asks, standing still, feeling the baby in her belly and the place Pupok used to be. Sometimes she can hear a kind of echo of Pupok's voice. "Do it," Pupok says, hissing.

Sarah moves her jaw. "No errands. Got something to show you. Fe'll drive."

They are quiet in the car but Brother Sestra fills up the quiet with telling about "up North" and with changing radio stations and once Helena starts to sing but then she remembers that she sounds like a beached whale and that Sarah is next to her but not touching and Helena thinks it is better to just watch out the window.

She recognizes this place. Pupok clicks and hums and Pupok is _dead_ there is no Pupok, only a Pupok-place. Helena's stomach growls, and she knows the bushes provide excellent cover and there is a rock that can be used to balance her gun. The German in her sights. Red hair, she remembers, and then much more red. 

"This is what you are showing me?" Helena does not like how hungry she sounds.

"Thought we could both use remembering." 

This must tell Brother Sestra something because he turns the car off, and Sarah nudges Helena to open the door and get out. Felix will stay in the car, Helena knows. They walk in slow circles, and Helena tries not to look for blood but keeps looking anyway. She can smell it, almost.

"How many of our sisters did you kill, Helena? You want a family, and you've _got_ us, but..." Sarah shakes her head, kicks at the dirt. Some stays on the toe of her boot, making the black dull. "You did this, too." Sarah pulls her hand through her hair then rubs at her neck. She is sore. "Your baby isn't gonna be safe in a world where our sisters aren't safe, kay?" This is the point, this is what has made Sarah hard. Saying it makes her softer, but sad. She touches Helena's elbow. "And I know you had reasons for what you did--"

"I could feel you then, Sestra," Helena says, and it is not what she wants to say ( _sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry, I did not know, I knew, I knew, I am so so sorry_ ) but it is a true thing. "Not like now, but… your eyes, they are different from their eyes."

Sarah shakes her head again. "No, they aren't, Helena. My eyes are exactly the same."

 

*

The ride back is quieter -- Felix seems to know to stop talking -- but the storm has broken. Less electric charge, and Sarah even keeps her shoulder pressed to Helena's. The feeling is good. So good that Helena isn't sure if she should breathe. They leave the German behind them, but take her with them all the same. Helena is glad and guilty over the gladness that Sarah cannot take her to the alleyway in France, to the parking structure in Austria, to the park in Italy.

They stop to pick up Kira, and Sestra Alison sends them off with a small bag of clothing for Helena, "Just a few odds and ends, she's going to need maternity clothing soon, Sarah, you don't happen to have any of yours lying around, do you?" and enough food to last at least a week, according to Felix. 

"You're kidding, right?" Sarah laughs. "I was six-bloody-teen, Alison. I wore t-shirts from charity shops."

"She looked good, and you know it," Fe assures them, but Alison doesn't seem too convinced. 

Helena was sixteen and throwing knives, learning the best places in the body to take blood, the places that kill but don't make a mess. Helena was taking lives and Sarah was making one. 

Kira sits on Helena's lap as they drive home, to Mrs. S's home, and it will be Helena's home too, they say. And maybe, her baby will have this home. Her baby will know Kira, and Sarah, and family, and nothing about the way blood feels on skin.

Kira's hand drawing her into the house feels like a beginning.

"We'll make the couch up for ya. Not great for your back, but 'm sure you've slept on worse," Sarah walks Helena through the house, giving her the novelty of a tour as if this is the first time she's been inside. Mrs. S takes a galloping Monkey up to her room and their laughter filters down through the ceiling. 

"Yes," Helena agrees. "I sleep on wooden bench, and in cage. My baby does not mind." She pats at her belly, still unnerved at the tight skin and the baby inside. 

"You've had kind of a shit time." Sarah does not ask this as a question, but Helena still nods. She thinks about little Kira in her pink room and of the lockers at the convent. She would like to be softer, so her baby will not be wrapped so close. Her baby is brave, but maybe, it will be happier when it comes to see her. "Right, guess I'd be a real arse if I didn't offer ya my bed." 

"I will stay with you, Sestra? Like when we are camping?"

"A sleepover," Sarah insists. "Less farting."

This makes Helena smile. She remembers Sarah's laugh, and feels one inside of her now. Bubbly. "Tell me, what is sleepover?"

Sarah leads them upstairs, holding Helena's bag across her chest, like a shield of armor. "Never really had one m'self; too angry, too bloody pregnant, but, ah, you do up each other's hair, talk about cute boys." They pass Kira's room and stop to wave and smile, and then Sarah stands at another room, tossing the bag before them onto the bed. "Better'n the couch." She hops up onto the bed and toes her boots off before scooting back and starting in on Helena's bag.

She unpacks the few items slowly, and Helena watches. Pupok is gone, but Helena thinks Pupok would say "Her neck's exposed," and her muscles tighten in response. "There, between her ribs." No. There is no place for Pupok here. The hole in Helena is no longer Pupok-shaped, but mushy around the edges. She pushes a hand against her belly and thinks she can feel the cavity, presses harder until there is no room.

And then there is a small pile of folded clothing, and a Sestra on the bed. Sarah lets herself flop down onto the pillows. "Feels like ages since I've slept here." She talks into the pillow but Helena has excellent hearing and knows every word. 

Sarah has not touched her in the house, and maybe she is changing her mind. Maybe she is the one waiting until Helena's guard is down to sink the knife in.

No.

"They tell me lies," she says, fiddling with the bottom edge of her shirt. "Tomas and Maggie. I--"

"I know," Sarah says, and turns over, patting the space beside her on the bed. "C'mere, meathead."

The sky opens and the storm, perhaps, is done. Helena feels like sunshine, so she goes to the bed and crawls on, careful not to bounce too much because Sestra Alison tells her this is a very rude way to treat a host. The bounces feel like a car on a road filled with holes, and Sarah likes road trips, so this makes Sarah smile. One, two, three, and this is enough. Helena lays down next to Sarah, with her head on the same pillow. 

The sunshine spills out between them, making them warm and sleepy. "Jesus, Helena, your breath smells like a fuckin' bin lorry."

Helena scrunches her nose. She does not know what this is.

Sarah laughs, but does not explain. Instead, she says, "I forgive you," and Helena really cannot breathe. Her heart pounds, up in her throat and all through her body. She thinks she is shaking, the whole bed, the whole room. There is no word to say to this, so Helena touches Sarah and the shaking stops. She puts her hand flat over Sarah's ribs. Sarah does not flinch, does not pull away, but puts her hand at Helena's side, and they breathe the same breath.

Time must pass. The house is quiet, but they stay still. 

She does it. Helena leans closer and kisses Sarah, quick on her nose and then on her lips. She does not stay, does not try to find if Sarah's mouth wants hers, or what her Sestra tastes like. "Brush your teeth 'fore you do that, Christ," Sarah says, but Sarah is smiling and she does not take her hand away. "And not in front of S, either."

Helena laughs loudly, snorting too. She gets up on her knees and bounces a few times for good measure. "Gemma has cotton candy toothpaste. Does Kira have this also? I like cotton candy."


End file.
